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Eight Years of Vocabula

 Eight years! I hope the time has been as joyful for you as it has for me.

Bill Spensley
CapeCod.Bill@verizon.net

The Vocabula Community

 I really feel like I'm now in a "Mister Rodger's Neighborhood" of language mavens. ... Praise to the Internet and those who use it wisely and well.

Margarent Levine
peggyle@mindspring.com

Masturbation Words

 I enjoyed Mark Morton's piece on masturbation words. As he suggests, the first attested use of the word traces to the late 1700s. I've always wondered if Jonathan Swift and others knew about the word before then. The following passage from the beginning of Gulliver's Travels (1735) may or may not indicate as much:

MY FATHER had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five
Sons. He sent me to ... Cambridge, at Fourteen Years old, where I resided
three Years, and applyed my self close to my Studies: But the Charge of
maintaining me (although I had a very scanty Allowance) being too great for
a narrow Fortune; I was bound Apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent
Surgeon in London, with whom I continued four Years; and my Father now and
then sending me small Sums of Money, I laid them out in learning Navigation,
and other parts of the Mathematicks, useful to those who intend to travel,
as I always believed it would be some time or other my Fortune to do. When I
left Mr. Bates, I went down to my Father; where, by the Assistance of him
and my Uncle John, and some other Relations, I got Forty Pounds, and a
Promise of Thirty Pounds a Year to maintain me at Leyden: There I studied
Physick two Years and seven Months, knowing it would be useful in long
Voyages.

Soon after my Return from Leyden, I was recommended, by my good Master
Mr. Bates, to be Surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannell Commander;
with whom I continued three Years and a half, making a Voyage or two into
the Levant, and some other Parts. When I came back, I resolved to settle in
London, to which Mr. Bates, my Master, encouraged me, and by him I was
recommended to several Patients. I took Part of a small House in the Old
Jury; and being advised to alter my Condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton,
second Daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, Hosier, in Newgate-street, with whom I
received four Hundred Pounds for a Portion.

But, my good Master Bates dying in two Years after, and I having few
Friends, my Business began to fail; for my Conscience would not suffer me to
imitate the bad Practice of too many among my Brethren.